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Wednesday, April 6, 2016

A new ordinance outlining information that pet shop owners need to display regarding the cats and dogs they are selling was unanimously passed by the Arlington Heights Village Board at its meeting held on Monday, April 4. The new rules for pet shop owners are to ensure pets sold in the village come from safe breeders and that buyers have more information available to them.

The ordinance outlining new requirements for pet shop owners was created after the Village Board opted out of Cook County's "puppy mill" ordinance in 2015. At that time, the Board decided to hold off adopting a specific ordinance regulating the sales of dogs and cats until pending litigation involving the validity of Cook County's ordinance was resolved. The federal district court upheld the ordinance but the plaintiffs have appealed, and the case is ongoing.

The new ordinance requires pet stores to have readily available in the store a significant amount of information about all of the dogs and cats they sell, including detailed information about the breeder. A list of some of the items that must be displayed near the cage of each dog or cat being sold includes:

Name and location of the breeder.

Whether the breeder is licensed U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Medical and inoculation information for the animals.

A link to the USDA website so buyers can conduct their own due diligence.

Whether the breeder is a "hobby breeder," meaning the breeder has fewer than five female dogs or cats.

The breeder's average animal population for the previous six months.

Reports of whether the breeder has received any violations in the past quarter.

Pet shop operators who do not comply with the Code provisions could be given a citation, fined up to $750 and also have their business license revoked or suspended.

The Village Board thanked several students at Patton Elementary School in Arlington Heights who worked on a statewide puppy mill ban a few years ago and worked with village staff members to help pass the new ordinance.

Three fifth-grader animal rights activists from Patton Elementary School, Claire Hackmann, Brooke Martin and Maddie O'Dell spoke at the podium for the advocacy of safety, health and welfare of animals at Monday's village board meeting. The students wore identical pink T-shirts bearing the message "Adopt Don't Shop!"

In worse case scenarios, investigation of puppy mills have discovered puppies bred with health and/or social problems. Puppies raised in a cramped environments were discovered sharing living spaces with many other dogs can become poorly socialized to other dogs and to humans.

Some dogs were raised in chicken coops, rabbit hutches or cages with wire flooring.

Some female dogs spent their entire lives breeding, and were euthanized when they were no longer capable of conceiving.

Some breeders made false claims as authentic breeders and sold puppies that were labeled purebreds that weren't actually purebred

Dogs in "puppy mills" were discovered to have been transported over long distances in poor conditions, sometimes resulting in animal stress and death. As the surviving mill dogs grow older, they are more prone to developing respiratory ailments and pneumonia, as well as hereditary defects such as hip dysplasia